Sell remains Pacific's all-time leader in hits, runs, doubles, RBI and total bases almost two decades since he graduated to an eight-year career in professional baseball. Sell - arguably the best position player in Pacific history - will take his rightful place in the university's Athletics Hall of Fame at 6 p.m. today at Spanos Center.

Sell, who played for coach Quincey Noble from 1991-1994, headlines a class that features four other individuals - Mike House (football, 1978-80), Brandee McArthur (softball 1995-99), Ernie Segale (contributor) and Molly Smith (women's water polo, 1996-2000) - and the 1972-73 and 1973-74 men's swimming teams. The hall of fame was founded in 1982 and now includes 233 inductees and 25 teams.

Sell said it was an honor to be recognized by Pacific and didn't realize he still dominates the program's record book.

"It makes me feel good to know I lead those categories, but I'm not a big stats person and they were never the driving factors for me," Sell said. "But I get that numbers are important in all sports."

Sell hit .355 in 825 at-bats over 209 games at Pacific, where he helped lift a program that went 67-89 in his first three seasons to a 36-18 mark as a senior. Noble said Sell was his first recruit out of Gervais, Ore., when he became head coach in 1990 and it was a wise investment.

"He came in there from the get-go and showed why he was a future hall of famer," Noble said. "He was a steady player, day-in, day-out and one of the top players that ever played at UOP. Regardless of who the pitcher was, he'd always put the ball in play."

Sell said he enjoyed playing on those teams and being a part of the 36-18 final season, which he credited to Noble "recruiting a bunch of good guys that were also good baseball players and that all just had a common goal to get better."

Sell was a 33rd-round pick of the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 1994 draft and spent his next eight years playing in minor league baseball cities across the country while chasing the big league dream that just eluded him. Sell played in Yakima, Wash., Vero Beach, Fla., San Bernadino, San Antonio, Albuequerque, El Paso, Tucson, Ariz., and Indianapolis all while being in a relationship with Sharon West, whom he met while still at Pacific as she was getting her masters degree in sports medicine. She eventually became a professor at Pacific in 1998 after obtaining her doctorate in exercise physiology from Miami and the couple married in 1999, making Stockton Sell's offseason home.

Sell continued playing professionally until 2001 and hit .326 for Tucson of the Pacific Coast League in 2000. Once Sell turned 30, he figured a major league call-up wasn't coming and he began planning his future.

"I got tired of everything outside of the game," Sell said. "I used to tell people 'I didn't get paid to play baseball, I got paid for everything else you deal with outside of the game.' Those two to three hours on the field were great."

Sell said he might have joined his best friend, Shawn Suing, in becoming a fireman right out of high school if he hadn't been offered a scholarship to play baseball, so that's where he turned his focus after retiring from the sport. Sell worked to become an EMT and medic before eventually securing a spot at the Stockton Fire Department in 2003. Sharon Sell said the last dozen years have been a great time in her husband's life.

"His transition from being a player to being a firefighter has been a natural fit for him," said Sharon Sell, who remains a lecturer in Pacific's philosophy department. "He loves having that team environment."

The 41-year-old Sell said he still misses the game, especially the preparation that went with it. Helping fill some of that void is Sell's budding managerial career, where he's in charge of the Burlington Bees of Morada Little League, which includes his 6-year-old son, Brock. Sell's 5-year-old son, Jake, is playing T-ball.

"I'm trying to pass it on and sometimes I can be a little tough," Sell said. "I definitely have that parental instinct where I want my kids to do well, so I do get a little nervous and anxious and it's obvious with my body language."